What We Can Learn From A Birth Girdle
What the heck is it, and why do we care?
There was a small announcement in the history convention about three lengths of sheep skin parchment, sewn together to make about three meters. They used a new method to examine it, and they discovered some things that put an interesting new light on Medieval birthing practices.
What Is It?
A birth girdle is a strip of parchment, in this case sheep’s parchment, with prayers and religious iconography written all over it. St. Margaret iconography and other birth-related appeals would be used.
Churches kept these on their grounds and rented them out to pregnant women to use as talismans to protect them and their baby. When the women finished with the girdles, the church authorities would take them back, fold them up, and store them to rent out to the next family.
New Findings
This particular girdle was made in the late 1400’s and barely survived King Henry VIII’s destruction of the monasteries in the 1500’s. It seemed to be used in secret for a few decades after that.
A team of researchers decided to take a look at it in the last year, and they included a biologist by the name of Sarah Fiddyment.
She took all the eraser crumbs they found on the parchment and analyzed it for biological and chemical leavings. She found scrapings of honey, egg white, egg yolk, sweat, and skin cells.
The Basic Idea
It was originally believed to be put under the woman as she gave birth, but the new evidence suggests it was used as a literal belt right by the skin in the last months of pregnancy. It lacked the amniotic fluid and blood that would have been present if it had been put under someone in labor. The skin cells and sweat suggested that, at most, it was laid gently over a woman’s stomach as she went into labor.
The honey and eggs were interesting too. Honey and eggs were used in medicine to treat all sorts of conditions and illnesses, as well as being foodstuffs. They compared the ingredients to the medical nostrums suggested in the Trotula and found some medicines that could have been in use.
The researchers also studied the wear patterns to see where the parchment was folded and how it was handled. They think women were fingering and kissing the girdle in a ritual of propitiation.
The Take Away
Did you know that the mortality rate for birth was at least one in eight? Women died in childbirth at a horrific rate before the 20th century. Clearly, these birth girdles or any of the other hacks tried didn’t help much. If renting a piece of paper could preserve you, that rate would be much lower.
Also, it is understandable to pray for protection when you go into the most dangerous part of your life. The need to feel a little control over the situation is innate and reasonable.
All I can say is that I hope the churches kept their birth girdle rental fees reasonable. If you are going to rent out a paper with prayers written on it to people who don’t have any better options, you have got to at least your prices down.